Bitter to bright: Garcia happy with opening 66 in Masters

Sergio Garcia, of Spain, listens to his caddie Greg Hearmon on the 14th green during the first round of the Masters golf tournament Thursday, April 11, 2013, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
— AP

Sergio Garcia, of Spain, listens to his caddie Greg Hearmon on the 14th green during the first round of the Masters golf tournament Thursday, April 11, 2013, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
/ AP

AUGUSTA, Ga.  “I'm not good enough. I don't have the thing I need to have. In 13 years I've come to the conclusion that I need to play for second or third place.”

On the Saturday of the Masters last April, Sergio Garcia was obviously speaking from a dark place in his heart and not the logical portion in his brain. He had just struggled to a 75 that knocked him out of contention, and he’d eventually tie for 12th to finish out of the running for an eighth consecutive year.

“If I didn't mean it, I couldn't stand here and lie like a lot of the guys,” Garcia said on Sunday when asked about his comments. “If I felt like I could win, I would do it.”

Pushed about whether he was speaking specifically about the Masters, Garcia shook his head.

“In any major,” he said.

It was shocking to hear. Sad, too. At the age of 32, the Spaniard who once skipped across fairways as a 19-year-old seemed to be all but dropping to his knees. He was the matador who let his cape fall to the dirt.

Of course, the goring was performed by this writer and others, who simply couldn’t fathom how a relatively young man who lost a British Open playoff only five years earlier could so publicly be giving up. We have known that Garcia can be the moodiest of subjects, but this was truly gloomy stuff.

There is a long shelf life for memorable statements, and so Garcia was reminded of them fairly quickly in his press conference on Thursday after the first round of this year’s Masters. He’d had a markedly happier day, tying his best-ever number at Augusta with a bogey-free, 6-under-par 66.

Garcia can be a bit prickly when pressed by reporters, but he didn’t even blanch.

“Those were my words,” Garcia said, studying the table top for a few seconds. “I think that at the end of the day, we go through moments, tough moments, frustrated moments, and I know it was one of them.

“Obviously, maybe I didn’t say it the right way. … I definitely kind of shot myself out of the tournament last year. … So I wasn’t wrong there.

“But every time I tee off, I try to play as well as I can, hope that my best shot that week is really, really good, and if I manage to do that I will have a chance at winning. Today my best was pretty good, and I’m looking forward to doing the same thing the next three days. It will be really nice.”

Garcia is a polarizing personality and player. He can seem charming in one sitting, punkish in the next. It’s the same way on the course. He can play with flair and commitment or look like he’d rather be almost anywhere else.

Augusta hasn’t exactly been sweet tea and peach cobbler for Sergio. He’s considered to be one of the game’s best ball-strikers, but he’s a shaky putter, and the greens have confounded him. His only top-10 here is an eighth place in 2002. The frustration built up, and then he let the steam out last year.